alt Hacker NewsTesla to wind down Cybertruck production
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Open source it entirely from parts to software, and let whoever wants to maintain it themselves to keep it.
I wonder if we will see less aggressive and generally hostile car designs in the future, now that public sentiment towards the tech oligarchs seems to have shifted.
Renault is designing cute things again, so that's a good development. So is Citroen, apparently?
So that's a good development
concerning?
Behold the Toyota Hilux [1], a truck so reliable that it is the truck of choice in many developed nations and even less developed ones. It's so cheap and reliable it became the platform for a war [2]. It also has a truck bed equivalent to a Ford F150, a vehicle significantly larger. But you can't buy a new Hilux or equivalent in the US because cars younger than 25 years cannot legally be imported [3] (to stop grey imports on Mercedes in the 1980s, originally) and because of CAFE standards [4].
Electric vehicles obviously don't have the hurdle of meeting emissions standards so Tesla, or any other company really, had (and has) the opportunity to create a small, cheap, mass market utility truck that no gas-powered vehicle can compete with. This is what the Cybertruck should've been.
There have been breakdowns of the Cybertruck and it is such an incredibly bad design. Things like the weight of stainless steel panels but with an aluminum frame. Why is that a problem? Because aluminum is prone to catastrophic failure with the up and down motion of towing a heavy load than stainless steel simply isn't [5].
The rumor has been that the only thing propping up Cybertruck demand is Elon forcing his own companies like SpaceX to buy them [6]. Other than that, the Cybertruck became a weird political statement [7]. Those people are getting crucified on resale. It's even a trend on Tiktok and elsewhere to watch these trade in videos. People who paid $150k+ are getting <$70k less than 2 years later.
Anyway, I'm shocked no US manufacturer is tackling the EV small utility truck market. Yes there was the F150 Lightning but it's still too big (and thus expensive).
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_Hilux
[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_War
[3]: https://www.octane-magazine.com/articles/features/usa-25-yea...
[4]: https://www.thedrive.com/news/heres-how-regulations-accident...
[5]: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/nZcb9TTyneFbxiDav/the-giga-p...
[6]: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-04-16/tesla-lea...
[7]: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2025/02/12/tesla-...
It's good to dare to try things more than a little different.
Who would think we could get satellite internet that works?
The Cybertruck wasn't really designed as a volume item, it was designed as the testbed for Tesla's next gen tech (ethernet-based fieldbus, 48V tech). You can do only so much in the lab, and sometimes you have to push your tech into production to find the last few% of failures, which will cost you dearly if you actually put them into your volume sellers.
I mean it's probably not that comforting for owners to unknowingly have signed up for a beta test, but that was the plan for Tesla for a while with the Cybertruck.
This was also the reason for sloppy stuff like steel panels glued to the aluminium frame, and not following up on their initial promises - the car morphed from a serious project into a low volume testbed sometime during its production.
Tesla seems to be killing its non volume cars the S and X are dead as well, I've heard rumors the Model 3 might be on its way out.
I mean as much as I love thd idea of actually doing something bonkers, the lack of sales seemed inevitable to most I assume, so that should come as no surprise. Should have stayed a concept car.
Reading through some of the comments in this thread feels like being in the Twilight Zone. This is the company of a man who poured almost half a billion dollars into the US election to try to buy favor in Texas. He tried basically bribing voters in Wisconsin before. Weeks ago, he used Starlink for political retribution against Ukraine. He’s unelected, unaccountable and has repeatedly and brazenly tried to undermine US democracy and insert himself in international affairs.
And yet some of the comments talk about this like these cars exist in a vacuum, detached from the realities of the person behind them. Some of them even praise this hideous, low quality, overpriced, impractical abomination of a truck. Parts of the tech world really do live in a bubble.
Headline of article is: "RIP Cybertruck. You Were Unloved, Unwanted, and Utterly Absurd"
No point in editorializing it.
Musk was a fool to mistake the hollering of a small group of enthusiasts for that of the truck-buying U.S. population. Nobody was actually wanting for the CyberTruck. He should've listened to his marketing people and not be guided by social media and his right-wing instinct.
Then again, he's a con-man who's now quietly distancing himself from CyberTruck ("I had nothing to do with it") and moving on to the next con-trick: the CyberCab.
Truly the peak of 2020s antisocial car design. The car looks designed to plow through other vehicles, barriers, and pedestrians without slowing down to count the bodies. "Bulletproof bodypanels" is only a selling point on a mass production car if you routinely piss people off enough to make them grab iron. Folks who need pickup trucks for the utility they provide have stuck with trucks that are actually fit for purpose. It was a way to signal to the world that you had extremely poor judgement and low standards.
Well this thread has taught me that “I don’t like Elon, but “ appears to be the new pronouns for people that find it important to signal their left wing bona fides.
Honestly thought we’re done with that …
Tesla's forgotten how to make actual products people want to buy thanks to its meme stock status, government handouts, state & federal tax and carbon credits, not to mention the absurdly high tariffs on foreign competitors.
It has received zero actual feedback from the market so the new products are based on ketamine high visions rather than market needs.
It'll probably be folded into SpaceX by the time the feedback arrives.
I'm convinced that Elon made it just because he thought it would be funny. "Let's make a truck that looks like it came out of a 90s low-polygon video game! That'll be hilarious!" He never cared for one moment if it was actually a good product.
The poor people that bought them were the butt of his joke.
>The US EV maker only began delivering the Cybertruck to customers in late 2023. According to Kelley Blue Book, the company only sold 20,237 Cybertrucks in the US last year, down 48% from 38,965 in 2024. Before the pickup truck launched, Musk had predicted annual sales of 250,000 units.
ouch
>blaming the problem on the wrong type of glue, a new adhesive “not prone to environmental embrittlement.”
>some RWD Cybertruck owners merrily driving along could be disconcertingly overtaken by their own wheels.
Who's doing the proofreading at Wired now? Is it all just AI?
Im curious about the timing of this announcement.
On the surface, it seems to take the wind out of their sails.
They told us the cybertruck was awesome.
They told us flying cars soon.
Now we see the fate of the first promise.
I would have delayed this announcement for as long as possible after the flying car show from a PR perspective.
Which makes me think this announcement is throwing a bone to the financial bean counters ahead of the potential merger with SpaceX.
Cleaning the companies books of fat before the big game.
Tesla's forgotten how to make actual products people want to buy thanks to its meme stock status, government handouts, state & federal tax and carbon credits, not to mention the absurdly high tariffs on foreign competitors. It has received zero actual feedback from the market so the new products are based on ketamine high visions rather than market needs.
It'll probably be folded into SpaceX by the time the feedback arrives.
No fan of Elon here but I prefer Cybertrucks to Hummers based solely on observed owner behavior. Hummer drivers are DICKS. Cybertruck drivers are just driving around in some metallic 3-D geometry with little (observable) ill intent
Unloved and unwanted is outright false. Go to cybertruckownersclub.com for a more balanced take. Somehow Wired managed to completely miss the best U-word description of it: Ugly.
We can add the truck’s 25,000 annual unit sales versus Musk’s 250,000 prediction to the long list of his other failed and bogus predictions. The top of that list has many contenders: date of mars colonization, date of driverless car, everything about his ridiculous tunnel system in Las Vegas. Yet the media regularly credulously report, “Elon Musk says…”.
Good riddance from the taped on glued on pump and dump scheme for fElon.
Ugliest car ever screaming insecure and politically controversial owner who can't shut his mouth, what could go wrong
Maybe they will upgrade the polygon count, anti-alias some of the improperly cut borders and implement proper Béziers curves...
It did sort of identify/lean into something that I think many people don't really want to acknowledge, which is, yes the "truck" has become a status symbol rather than a work vehicle.
Had Musk leaned into it as the "luxury"/GT of trucks (like the H2), there probably would've been less pushback. Granted he's functionally incapable of not just lying about things being the best every and setting stupid impossible goals, but I do think there's outcomes where we see more things "akin" to the cybertruck, leaning into the Pavement Princess market.
I struggle with why I should care. A low selling, controversial truck that is the brainchild of an eccentric billionaire is being discontinued. It's a triumph of Tesla marketing that anyone should care.
They have sold 70k Cybertrucks since 2023. Ford has sold more than 10 times that alone of F-series. Toyota sells that many RAV4s every two months.
For anyone that bought one and loves it - I'm not questioning your choice and I hope the vehicle will be well supported. Many popular vehicles that sell better have been discontinued like the entire companies of Geo, Saturn, and AMC. The Chevy Malibu sold twice as many cars per year pre-Covid than total Cybertrucks have been sold, and they were discontinued.
It's relatively neat that Tesla tried something new but they should consider focusing on operations and not losing further ground to BYD globally.
Why isn't Tesla responding to queries as to whether production will cease completely? Are they ignoring bad news and bad rap? Childish of them.
Tesla could simply come up with a more prevalent looking EV pick-up truck of course.
I still remember the marketing for the Cybertruck. Tesla teased a partial neo-noir silhouette of the truck which had everyone guessing which part it belonged to. Childhood fantasies about Blade Runner designs were conjured in people’s imaginations. Fanboys were truly generous with the design expectations. Embarrassed to admit now, I did go to the unveiling and when it rolled out I thought this must be a gag and the real Blade Runner would follow any second now, only to realize that this ugly thing was it. If you could only see the collective shock amongst the attendees. Only the drunks were cheering. Then the boss had the designer throw a ball through the window. Twice.
(Edit: the actual designer had the assistant designer throw a ball through the window.)
What a shame. They were a good way to filter out folks to avoid whenever you saw someone driving one.
I recently had a Tesla service call at my house (routine maintenance for my Y). He showed up in a darkly wrapped Cybertruck. It didn’t occur to me that they’re just dogfooding their own vehicles to use them up.
Hilarious but a logical end state option for them.
Money better spent on your roadster reservations.
They are probably the ugliest vehicles ever produced. They're an eyesore. Good riddance.
The cybertruck was announced like a bad meme and now dies as one too. What we see is the logical and long overdue conclusion of a story that lasted longer than it should have.
Good riddance.
Tired: all terrain vehicles
Wired: special purpose vehicles
It was absolutely shocking that this thing launched at all.
It was so bad, yet, Musk managed to make buying one became an identity thing, selling far more than the product warranted.
Someone knows the government infinite money machine, which Tesla, SpaceX, Solar City, and many other Musk companies took advantage of, is about to get cut off.
Like the ideology it represents, it's presence is impossible to ignore, but in the worst way possible. Plus it's a shitty truck.
It can never shake the "Ugh, get a load of this guy" factor, and it's a wonder it stayed in production this long.
side-topic: why trucks are so popular (especially USA)? Is it all in the fake testosterone virtue signalling and pretending to be hard working country people?
To me trucks are the most useless type of vehicle apart from niche utilitarian cases in farming or construction. Super heavy, gas guzzling, open bed, compromised handling, pedestrian crushing death machine.
If you want big family hauler, grocery getter: mini-vans, wagons.
If you are in trades: van, box truck or flatbed box truck (where bed is useful shape and size, and all sides can be removed if needed).
No, you don't need 3 tonne vehicle with bajillion horsepower as a daily, because you may need to pull a trailer with your inflatable dinghy once in a two years.
If you want truck adjacent vehicle, get Toyota 4runner or Highlander. Humongous cars, vast and closed cargo space. It will pull a trailer, it will haul all your stuff and family.
Tesla is now two cars away from offering no cars? There's just model x and y which was built off of x. It does seem like they'd do fine as a meme-stock company though.
Yeah the Roadster is never getting mass produced …
Also i wonder whether in 5-7 years Model 3 and Y will be around
Following the DeLorean example in more than just body surfaces.
The Delorean of our times…
I can only imagine how many people told Musk that the Cybertruck was a horrible idea and he completely ignored them and probably fired a lot of them. Musk basically re-enacted the Simpsons episode where Homer's brother lets him design a car and it is so bad it bankrupts the company.
I can't help but laugh at the number of people on HN that kept trying to convince everyone this wasn't a terrible product.
As this is a thread of its discontinuation, might be worth looking at the thread of its announcement.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21602437
Haven’t explored it yet, but it might be interesting to see how the sentiment shifted.